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Senate Blocks Energy Bill

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 — Brushing aside a veto threat from the White House, the House passed a package of energy measures on Thursday that includes a 40 percent increase in fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks sold in the United States. But the measure stalled today in the Senate, as expected.

The bill’s supporters say it will reduce the nation’s dependence on imported oil, jump-start development of clean-energy technologies and sharply reduce the nation’s production of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide.

But the complex and costly bill faces the prospect of a radical rewrite in the Senate because of opposition there to two provisions: $21 billion in new taxes, mostly on the oil industry, and a mandate that electric utilities must generate 15 percent of their power from alternative sources, like wind or solar. The White House threatened to veto the bill if the final version contains those or several other provisions passed by the House.

The House vote was 235 to 181, with 14 Republicans voting for it and 7 Democrats voting against. But the measure was blocked in the Senate this morning, as it attracted 53 “yes” votes — 7 short of the number needed to advance it. Forty-two senators voted against it.

Environmental groups, consumer advocates and alternative-energy companies have hailed the bill, but a broad array of opponents, including cattlemen, coal producers and multinational oil companies, are lining up to block it.

The centerpiece of the bill is a requirement that passenger vehicles sold in the United States achieve a fleet average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, the first significant increase in mileage standards since 1975. The provision was a result of a deal brokered by Representative John D. Dingell, the Michigan Democrat who has long protected the domestic automakers’ interests in Washington.

Mr. Dingell gave his reluctant support for the package in a floor statement before the vote, criticizing the process by which the compromise was reached and suggesting he would not be unhappy to see the Senate remove major parts of the overall bill.

“This bill is not the ultimate answer to our dependence on imported oil, to high energy prices or to climate change,” said Mr. Dingell. “But it is a major and important step toward those goals, and, for that reason, I will be voting for it.”

The White House issued a statement immediately after the vote expressing its objections.

“Unfortunately, Democratic leaders in the House today pushed a partisan bill, that members had very little opportunity to study before the vote, which they knew was unacceptable to the president and had no chance being signed into law,” the statement said. “Their proposal would raise taxes and increase energy prices for Americans. That is a misguided approach and if it made it to the president’s desk, he would veto it.”

The bill envisions a sevenfold increase in production of ethanol and other biofuels, from about 5 billion gallons a year today to 36 billion gallons by 2022. It provides incentives for production of diesel fuel mixed with renewable liquids including soy oil and animal fat; cellulosic ethanol made from sugar cane and switch grass and advanced fuels formulated from municipal garbage, wood chips and agricultural waste.

The largest source of these alternative fuels remains corn, and food producers argue that diversion of corn to fuel production is driving up feed prices for cattle, pigs and poultry. They oppose the bill because it raises their production costs and, ultimately, the price of food on the table.

“The ethanol number is definitely too high. It burns more feed and food than we would like,” said Jesse Sevcik, vice president for legislative affairs at the American Meat Institute. “The hog diet is 80 percent corn, and when corn prices double, those producers’ input costs go up pretty substantially.”

The oil industry hopes to eliminate a provision that rescinds more than $13 billion in tax breaks granted in 2004 and 2005, when Congress was in Republican hands. Democratic supporters of the bill said the oil companies could easily afford the new taxes because they were earning record profits on oil selling for more than $90 a barrel. But the oil companies said the money would come from revenue needed to develop new sources of oil and would lead to higher prices at the gasoline pump.

The bill contains hefty incentives for a variety of new energy sources and efficiency measures, like wind turbines, solar arrays, plug-in hybrid cars and more fuel-efficient buildings and appliances.

In the Senate, the prospects for the renewable electricity standard and the oil industry tax package are highly uncertain. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said the Senate could pass an energy bill without those two “millstones.”

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, declined to predict passage, with or without the renewable energy or tax provisions.